Zimbra Tips : How to Activate Instant Messaging/Chat in Zimbra 8

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As information in release notes that Instant Messaging (IM)/Chat not available in Zimbra 8. The following is information in release notes Zimbra 7

Zimbra Instant Messaging (IM) capabilities are going to be removed in the next major release of ZCS. These capabilities include the embedded IM server and the Zimbra IM Client (part of the Zimbra Web Client). Zimbra IM is marked BETA and should not be enabled in a production environment and is not a supported feature.

I know this information has been there in 2/3 year ago. However, many of my clients still use Zimbra 7 and use IM/Chat as secondary communication besides email. If you want to enable IM feature in Zimbra 8, please try this guidance

cd /srv/
wget -c http://www.zextras.com/download/zextras_suite-latest.tgz
tar -zxvf zextras*.tgz
cd zextras*
./install.sh all

Select Y (Yes) on every question and wait until done. Perform the following command to flush cache as root user

su - zimbra -c 'zmprov fc -a zimlet'

Please login to Zimbra Admin. Select ZeXtras Suite | ZxChat. Click Deploy to install zimlet ZxChat.

deploy zxchat

# Configure users to use ZxChat (add buddy list)

After zimlet ZxChat deployed, invite/add buddy all users to use ZxChat. Login to Zimbra Admin. Select ZeXtras Suite | ZxChat. Enter distribution list that have member all users. If you do not have distribution list, please create. Or you also can add ZxChat between two users to each others buddy list. Press connect this group/these accounts. Please see the example below

add zxchat to users

Please login to webmail. You will see the ZxChat already to use

ZeXtras Chat

Good luck and hopefully useful 😀

Source :

– https://www.zextras.com/suite/chat/

– https://wiki.zextras.com/wiki/ZxChat

15 comments

  1. Checking for the most up-to-date version of the ZAL library…

    Unable to automatically determine the latest version of the ZAL library.
    Please download the file located at
    http://openzal.org/1.10/zal-1.10-8.6.0.jar
    or check the documentation available at
    http://wiki.zextras.com/wiki/ZeXtras_Suite_ZAL_requirements
    about how to find out what’s the most appropriate version of
    the ZAL library for your environment.

    Once you have downloaded the the appropriate file,
    rename it as « zal.jar » and place it in the packages subdirectory,
    currently located at

    /opt/zextras_suite-2.2.2/packages

    Then, run the installer again.

    Exiting …

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